


Playing with Fire

by DarkShadows_EvilMind



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Breaking One's Own Heart, Drunken Kissing, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Pining, Post-Canon, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, The Real Reason Stan Won't Come Back to Derry That No One Remembers - Headcanon, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadows_EvilMind/pseuds/DarkShadows_EvilMind
Summary: He had never been one to play with fire, to watch flames eat up paper or wood or cloth. He could see the appeal. He could appreciate the exciting heat and anticipation—wondering how long it would take to build, wondering how high the flames could climb.Stan was too cautious, too well aware that he of all people would end up getting burned—too aware of the fact that no matter how hot the fire, no matter how high it climbed, it would leave nothing but ashes in its wake.Which was why, when Richie’s next kiss was pressed to his cheek, it was chased by a tear.





	Playing with Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about wanting something you can't have so badly that you finally steal it. Stealing is still a crime, no matter how good it feels, and you'll still have to pay for it sooner or later. Especially if there's no way to steal it without being caught.
> 
> Please enjoy!

They shouldn’t be doing this. No, no, no! This was wrong—it was so wrong!

But, God, was it _good._ Oh, God, how he _wanted_ it, how he _craved_ it. The desire, the longing, the _need,_ it had lived in his chest for so long that it had become a heavy, aching mass where his heart should be.

Any time they looked at each other, any time he caught the other boy looking at him, the pain flared up. He would find himself biting his lip, swallowing hard, choking on his breath—suffering. 

Stan found himself absolutely suffering.

His breaths started to shudder, his tongue writhed in his mouth. The _images_ that went through his head—the sinful, sick, depraved, magnificent daydreams he endured had him crumbling piece by piece.

Each day, he felt himself fall a little further apart. Every day, he felt himself fall a little further into his depravity. Every single day, he felt himself fall a little further in love with his cunning, foulmouthed, quick-witted friend. 

He saw in Richie everything he wished he could have. Good grades with no effort. Boundless energy, no matter the hour—no matter the situation. Charisma, charm, confidence… All things Stanley so heinously lacked. 

He was cowardly, he was suspicious, he was reserved. He felt tired at eight p.m. and didn’t like the taste of Pepsi or Coke or any other sodas that might perk him up. He would study and still fail the test. He couldn’t even read from the Torah properly and he’d been rehearsing for days and months and years. He just wasn’t...smart.

But Richie… One time, one time attending Temple with Stan, and he somehow picked up the accent of the elders and could remember full sentences even though he had no clue what the sounds he was making meant. How did he do it?

How was he _so perfect?_

Richie was so perfect it _hurt._

It hurt to look at him—it took Stan’s breath away to look at him. He felt sick, he felt wrong—he couldn’t _help_ himself.

He’d been fighting it for so many years. He’d been studying Richie’s face and his changing voice and his awful sense of fashion for so many years.

They were eighteen now and it was impossible not to notice him. Girls had started to notice him. Some even snuck letters into his locker at school which Richie proudly showed off after respectfully scratching out the girls’ names. (Because of _course_ he did. He was compassionate. He was so damned caring that he worried about hurting an admirer he had no interest in.) The one person Richie wanted to notice him, however, didn’t. 

Stan had known maybe even before Richie himself.

Stan was a wallflower by nature. He stayed on the sidelines. He watched things—he watched people. He liked to observe the different birds in the park and in the woods, how they changed with the seasons. Humans were very much the same. Richie was no different.

As a little kid, he never bothered with the “girls have cooties” phase. He treated them no different than anyone else, but it was so painfully clear that he’d rather hang out with boys. What little boy didn’t, Stan had reminded himself. What boy _wanted_ to go play house? (He did. He had. He wanted to learn to cook. He wanted to stay inside and keep his shoes clean and not mess up his clothes. He was the one everyone should have suspected, yet no one did. Not even Richie.) When other little boys were taunting girls and trying to scare them with frogs and bugs, Richie was doing that to his friends.

He did it to Eddie. 

He flung dirt at Eddie. He scared Eddie with reptiles and insects of all kinds.

He was harsher with Eddie than the others in their group. He was so obviously desperate for Eddie’s attention the way Stan was desperate for Richie’s—he just wasn’t afraid to show it. No one thought anything of it because obnoxious behavior was what made up Richie Tozier and Eddie was a perfect target for all sorts of masked flirtatious torments. No one saw it but Stanley—because he was looking for it and pining for it to happen to him. 

Oh, but he knew Richie didn’t feel the same. Oh, he knew he wasn’t really more than a passing thought when compared to their resident germaphobe. 

Even so, he savored it every time he caught Richie’s eye. It happened—not often, but it happened. Some of the other boys he was distracted by held a likeness to Stan’s physique. Lanky and tall with mops of curly hair—the exact opposite of Eddie. Sometimes Richie had eyes for him.

Tonight, drunk around a campfire in the woods, Richie had eyes for him. 

Eddie had gone home an hour ago, having somehow managed to forget the inhaler typically glued to his palm. Richie walked him home, then came back and sucked down down another bottle of beer. Then two more while cracking jokes with Bill whose stutter had gotten better until he’d gotten sloshed. 

Stan had a few more than he should’ve. Ben was tipsy, but mostly sober. Mike was drunk but it only showed when he got up to relieve himself in the bushes. 

Richie looked so perfect in the firelight. Stan couldn’t handle it. He looked at Richie, all his glossy curls and his white-toothed smile. Those lips—so big, so soft… He’d fantasized about kissing him so many times. Stan wanted to know if they were as warm as he hoped. He wanted to know if he’d be gentle or if he’d turn wild and bite. He wanted to _know_ Richie. He wanted to see the side of him that no one else got to.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe. All he wanted was to touch him—just touch his hair, just clap him on the shoulder. He wanted anything he could get. It was driving him insane. No matter what he did, no matter what he tried—no matter what he used to distract himself—his mind always spun back to Richie.

What would he—

How would he—

Could he even—

If he knew would he—

If Stan just had the balls to _ask_ him—

“You okay, Stan the Man?” Richie suddenly asked, clapping Stan on the shoulder and jerking him out of his haze of dizzying thoughts. Stan swayed on his feet, Richie caught him, and somehow—somehow, they were against a tree, just out of sight of Bill, Ben, and Mike. Richie was giggling, his big lips pulled into the gleeful smile Stan had come to love—the one that meant he was actually happy, actually enjoying himself and not putting it on for show. “Whoa! Don’t tell me you’re _fallin’_ for me!” Richie teased, laughing at his own joke because he just _didn’t know._

He was so smart and yet so naive and oblivious. He was so damned fixated on Eddie that he couldn’t see what he had right in front of him. He had no idea of the hell Stan lived in every single day—the raging inferno of need and want and madness that consumed him from the inside out—and made it a joke. 

Sober, Stan probably would’ve brushed it off. Maybe he would’ve thought of his own quick comeback that matched Richie’s wit—the kind that had him nodding to himself later as if to agree that, yes, that was a “good one.” Maybe he would’ve just said “Beep-Beep, Richie” and roll his eyes.

Tonight though, drunk and exhausted and desperate and sad, he took a chance. They were running out of time. Stan had been accepted to college out of state and hadn’t told anyone. If a moment of courage came back to bite him in the ass, he would be long gone from Derry in just under three months.

“Don’t tell me you’re _fallin’_ for me!” And then Richie’s mouth was sealed shut by Stan’s mouth. Richie’s back hit the tree behind him and Stan grabbed him by his cheeks, holding him still and slamming their mouths together.

Oh, God! They _were_ soft! His lips were even softer than Stan had ever imagined. They slid against his own, slick with spit and wet with traces of beer. Richie was moaning, more in protest than passion, but Stan drank it down anyway. Richie wasn’t shoving him, wasn’t hitting him or screaming for Bill to help. 

Stan tried working their lips against each other, trying to emulate what he’d seen in movies and read in magazines meant for women that he wasn’t meant to have. He’d never kissed anyone else. He’d never had anyone else—

And then Richie was turning his face away, his hands gripping Stan’s shoulders to keep him steady—or to keep Stan from pushing closer. 

In an instant, it was as if the spell was broken. Cold ice pooled in Stanley’s stomach and his lips were starting to babble out useless apologies. He’d just kissed him. He’d just grabbed Richie and kissed him. He’d ruined everything. He’d—

“Fuck,” Richie said, a little breathless. One hand coming off Stan’s shoulder in order to adjust his glasses. “If you wanted me that bad, Stan the Man...” 

Stan watched as Richie’s eyes glanced this way and that in the dark. He was trying to think of a joke and couldn’t find one. Stan had shaken him so badly that the master of wit was speechless.

“Fuck—we’re really doing this?” He asked, panting. Stan couldn’t find words to answer.

They were drunk—they were both drunk—and their friends were right there!

“Okay. We’re doing this. Okay—oh, fuck. Okay. Yeah… Trashmouth and Stan the Man. Shit...” 

“Richie, I’m so sorry,” Stan started to say, only to be cut off by Tozier grabbing his face the same way Stan had done to him and pulling him in.

It was Stan’s turn to be taken aback; it was his turn to stumble backwards. His hands grasped first at Richie’s wrists, then came to rest on the sides of his neck, feeling the other teen’s quick pulse, then dropped down to his hips and squeezed them.

He felt so solid, so warm and _real._ The glossy fabric of his shirt, the rough denim of his jeans and the smooth kiss of leather from his belt—Stan savored all of it. He was drinking in a dream. Richie’s lips were working against his own, wet and wanting and so very, very real.

Oh, shit. This was real. 

He shouldn’t be doing this. 

Stan knew he should _not_ be doing this. They were drunk. Richie was _really_ drunk. Richie was in love with Eddie and Stan was in love with Richie and this was just going to turn into one huge fucking train wreck.

But, God—yes. He needed it.

Richie bit into his bottom lip so hard that Stan yelped and tried to draw back. Instead, Richie grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him forward, harder, and stuffed his tongue down Stanley’s throat. Stan was petrified and Richie was moaning while his tongue explored Stan’s mouth.

He shouldn’t—

They shouldn’t—

Oh, yes, _please!_ He wanted it so much—he wanted to believe it was real so badly. 

Stan’s mind clicked off as soon as he felt Richie’s fingers hook around the front of his jeans, yanking him in—holding him close without daring to reach down and actually touch him. 

Richie was trembling but he didn’t pull away. Stan kissed him back, trying to learn from Richie’s example of what to do with his tongue. They broke away for fractions of seconds in order to breathe. Stan’s eyes were squeezed shut, clenching harder when their teeth would clack together. He could feel drool running down his chin, chilling his throat. 

Suddenly, Richie’s lips were chasing that trail—and his teeth. 

Oh, God. Please, yes. Please, no.

No, no, no!

They shouldn’t—

Stan’s fingers were wrapping in Richie’s curls and stroking them, scrunching them. The locks were greasy and thick, but still felt like silk as Stan caressed them. Massaging his scalp had Richie melting against him. 

At some point, Stan ended up backed against the tree, panting while Richie nipped his throat before reclaiming his lips. Richie was pinning him by his hips with his hands and his body—their chests mashed together as close as their mouths.

Stan imagined he could feel the other teen’s pulse beating through his rib cage. He memorized the feel of it—the heat, the closeness, the smell, the taste! 

Richie bit his bottom lip again and Stan whimpered, slumping down against the tree in awe of it. 

This was everything he wanted. This was everything he’d ever dreamed. God, he wanted to cry it felt so good. They were both panting for air, holding each other tightly while the fire crackled in the distance. 

Richie was looking off toward it, the yellow glow showcasing the drunk and hazy gleam in his eyes—the crease in his brow that looked like indecision, confusion. Stan’s heart shattered just to look at him.

He had never been one to play with fire, to watch flames eat up paper or wood or cloth. He could see the appeal. He could appreciate the exciting heat and anticipation—wondering how long it would take to build, wondering how high the flames could climb. 

Stan was too cautious, too well aware that he of all people would end up getting burned—too aware of the fact that no matter how hot the fire, no matter how high it climbed, it would leave nothing but ashes in its wake. 

Which was why, when Richie’s next kiss was pressed to his cheek, it was chased by a tear.

Whether or not Richie said anything before stumbling back toward the campfire, Stan didn’t know. His heart was trembling and his lips ached with bruises and cold. 

He was never going to feel that again. He’d taken the leap of faith and it left him curled up deeper in the pit of despair than he’d ever been.

No matter what was said in the morning, if anything at all, once Stan went off to college, he could never come back to Derry.


End file.
